The easy tax question for Virginia legislators (especially in this election year) is whether to use a federal tax windfall to give voters a tax break.

But Gov. Ralph Northam and his economic development team want them to take on a more difficult riddle: how to reform business taxes.

Speaking at the Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s annual economic summit in Williamsburg Friday, Virginia Economic Development Partnership CEO Stephen Moret let slip that business tax reform was one of the challenges he wants to tackle going forward.

And yes, said Gov. Ralph Northam, speaking to reporters after outlining his administration’s economic development plan to the chamber, he’s planning to ask the General Assembly to tackle the issue.

When asked by the Shad Plank if that included the business taxes that really get under executives’ skins, like the infamous business and professional license tax and the machinery and tools taxes that cities and counties levy, the governor stressed he wanted comprehensive tax reform.

Chatting with Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne during a break at the summit, it seemed natural to ask what the administration was thinking.

Layne said the real problem is precisely those BPOL and machinery and tools taxes. Virginia’s corporate income tax isn’t the lowest, but it isn’t the highest either. Not necessarily much bang for the economic development buck there.

But BPOL and machinery and tools taxes irritate businesses big time. They are among the highest in the nation on average, and vary from locality to locality in ways that surprise out-of-state executives unaccustomed to dealing with them when they explore setting up shop in Virginia.

The problem is those taxes are also an important source of revenue for local governments. Money they use to pay for schools, police, streets, social services, mental health, jails and other public services. Things that other states cover.

Taxes and services are linked, Layne said. The challenge with a reform that does away with a tax is how to pay for those services. Virginia’s experience with supposedly eliminating the car tax — a personal property tax on vehicles — didn’t work out so well. The funds the state transfers to make up for lost local government when it capped personal property taxes two decades ago haven’t increased over the years. But the costs of schools, police and so forth have. And we’re still paying some car taxes.

If the answer is to change funding formulas for the state’s share of local governments’ costs, then the question becomes where should those state funds come from, Layne said.

Virginia’s income and sales tax rates rank about in the middle of the pack among states. Layne noted that one area where we are out of step is that we do not levy sales taxes on services. Most other states do, he said.

Just in case you had any doubt, Virginians think the windfall coming to the state because of federal tax law changes ought to end up in their pockets.

But the student pollsters at Christopher Newport University found some less predictable consensus when they asked voters what they thought about gambling, ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment and the state’s incentives to woo Amazon’s new headquarters to Arlington.

Here’s the rundown:

About three quarters of voters think the federal tax windfall for the state ought to produce an across the board cut in state income taxes that would apply to all people. Six in ten say they support or strongly support a tax credit aimed at low- and moderate income Virginians regardless of how much they pay in state income taxes. Asked to pick between the two, voters were evenly divided.

Though there are options besides an across-the-board cut or a tax credit on the table, one thing is sure: legislators see some kind of tax break as a winner in the 2019 General Assembly session. Did we mention that 2019 is when all the House of Delegates and state Senate is up for election?

Roughly six in 10 voters think the state should legalize sports betting. That’s about the percentage that say the Pamunkey tribe should be allowed to open a casino. Federal law allows them to do so, but if they want to offer games that allow players to bet against the house, instead of against one another as in poker or bingo, they’d need the state’s OK.

That’s a possibility because of a push down in Bristol for the legislature to authorize a local referendum on a casino there.

And nearly six in 10 voters think if the Pamunkey can open a casino, others ought to be able as well. Want to bet state Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, will once again try to authorize one in Portsmouth?

“Virginia voters are ready for legalized sports betting and casinos, just like they were ready for the lottery 30 years ago,” said Rachel Bitecofer, assistant director of CNU’s Wason Center for Public Policy.

Two-thirds approve of the incentives and other supports Virginia promised in return for Amazon’s decision to open a new headquarters facility in Arlington’s Crystal City — and create 25,000 jobs.

Roughly seven out of 10 voters think Virginia ought to have an independent commission to draw legislative and Congressional district lines, instead of leaving that to the General Assembly.

And eight in 10 think the General Assembly should ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, which would add to the U.S. Constitution a guarantee of equal rights for women and men. The amendment passed Congress in 1978, and has been ratified by 37 states. But the 1982 deadline Congress set for ratification is past and it is not clear whether four states’ revocation of earlier ratification votes can stand.

“The legal standing of ratification may be murky, but Virginia voters are very clear that they want the 2019 General Assembly to pass the ERA,” said Wason Center director Quentin Kidd.

The results are based on phone interviews with 841 registered voters, and the margin of error is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence level. The margin reflects a design effect adjustment of 1.2 points, which reflects an effort to adjust a random poll to reflect the demographics and geographic distribution of Virginia voters.